By STEVE KRAH
PBR Indiana Correspondent 

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MISHAWAKA  — Penn spotted Elkhart Memorial to an early 5-0 lead then chipped away before winning in walk-off fashion Monday, May 30 in the championship game of the Class 4A Penn Sectional baseball tournament. 

Junior Ryan Lau hit the first pitch he saw in the bottom of the seventh inning for a triple to center field and scored moments later on a single up the middle by senior Luke Schneider as the Kingsmen (27-4) beat the Crimson Chargers 6-5 for the right to play Mishawaka (13-16) in the second semifinal of the LaPorte Regional on Saturday, June 4.  

“Our mindset was that it was the first inning and we’re capable of putting some runs on the board,” Penn coach Greg Dikos, an Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Famer, said. “We want to chip away and keep our heads in the game.  

“These guys have been there before and they did a nice job of just doing that.”

Dikos has come to expect these kinds of things from his teams. 

“Every run we’ve ever made — and we hope it continues, obviously — you have to win a game like this,” Dikos said. “There are games like this where you have to reach down and pull up your bootstraps and get after it to win that game.” 

Penn, which won the 4A state championship in 2015 and have four state crowns under Dikos, earned the program’s 20th sectional title Monday. 

But it wasn’t easy. 

Facing Kingsmen right-hander Skylar Szynski (9-1; 7 innings, 5 runs, 5 hits, 9 strikeouts, 4 walks), Memorial (10-18) sent eight batters to the plate in the top of the first inning and scored five runs. 

Junior lead-off hitter Justin Walter walked and scored on junior Brett Wilson’s double to right field. 

Senior Lane Schultz followed with a single to left to plate Wilson.  

After Schultz moved to second base on a wild pitch, a walk to senior Alec Mark and the Chargers’ first out of the frame, senior Jon Bailey pulled a 1-1 pitch over the left field fence at Jordan Automotive Group Field for a three-run home run and 5-0 Memorial lead. 

“I told the kids coming in, if we get up they’re going to come back,” Chargers coach Scott Rost said. “That’s just the nature of the beast with them. That’s who they are. We almost withstood that. In the end, we just came up a little short.  

“We had a few opportunities where we could have put a few more on the board and we weren’t able to take advantage of that and that cost us in the end.” 

Rost had his hitters ready to attack from the very first pitch. 

“I don’t want to see anybody get in that box and not compete or be afraid to compete. That was not the case in any way, shape or form with any of our guys in all the at-bats we had.” 

Szynski responded with two strikeouts to end the uprising and went on to give up just two singles the rest of the contest. The Indiana University signee never faced more than four batters in any of the remaining six innings. 

“I just had to adjust,” Szynski said “(Memorial) was hitting the ball hard so I decided I had to make better pitches and spot it up better.” 

Penn scored its first run in the first inning. 

Junior Matt Kominkiewicz reached base on the first of four Charger fielding errors on the day and scored on junior Nolan Metcalf’s two-out double to right. 

Metcalf would go on to collect three of Penn’s nine hits. 

“We never backed down,” Metcalf said on his team’s comeback attitude.  

Playing in front of the home fans was also helpful (Penn hosted the sectional for the first time this year. Memorial had been a sectional host for decades with Penn playing in Elkhart some of the time and in South Bend or Plymouth in some other years). 

“We feed off the energy,” Metcalf said.  

The Kingsmen pushed two runs across in the third inning to cut the gap to 5-3. 

Junior Trevor Waite walked to open the inning, moved to second on a wild pitch and scored one out later on a double to center by junior Niko Kavadas. 

Kavadas was knocked in when Metcalf took a 0-2 pitch from Memorial right-hander Justin Walter (5 innings, 4 runs, 6 hits, 8 strikeouts, 5 walks) and delivered an RBI single to left. Penn left the bases loaded. 

“(Walter) had our guys off-balance and talking to themselves,” Dikos said. “He was a gutsy player.” 

In the bottom of the fourth inning, Penn put two runners on but the Chargers ended the threat when sophomore shortstop Nolan Grose ranged behind second base to stop a shot off the bat of Kavadas and fired to junior first baseman Sam Wruble for the third out. 

In the top of the fifth, the Kingsmen did something very rare. Jim Kominkiewicz has been coaching with Dikos for 27 of his 29 years as head coach and neither could recall Penn turning a triple play.  

But that’s what they did. 

Wilson led off with a walk and moved to third on when Schultz reached second on a two-base error (and gave way to junior courtesy runner Tryston Swartz). 

When Mark lofted a ball into short center field, Kavadas sprinted in and made a shoe-string catch for the first out.  

“Kavadas made it exciting,” Dikos said. “He got his glove underneath it.” 

With both runners going, Kavadas threw to second baseman Kominkiewicz to double off Swartz and Kominkiewicz whirled and threw to senior third baseman Ryan Herman to triple off Wilson. 

“I’ll take responsibility,” Rost said. “I took a chance. I was hoping it would fall. Unfortunately, it didn’t. It wasn’t a situation where we’re going to tag if it’s caught that short. (Wilson and Swartz) took off and I didn’t stop them.” 

An unearned run in the bottom of the fifth allowed Penn to pull within 5-4. 

Metcalf beat out an infield single and moved to third on the play because of a throwing error. Senior courtesy runner R.J. Green scored on a sacrifice fly to left by senior Brandon Stesiak. 

Memorial junior center fielder Matt Kloss made a diving catch to take a hit away from Herman and end the Penn fifth. 

Memorial went down in the order in the top of the sixth inning.  

Penn tallied the tying run in the bottom of the sixth inning. 

With Walter around 119 pitches, he was relieved to start the sixth by right-hander Wilson (1-plus innings, 2 runs, 3 hits, 0 strikeouts, 2 walks). 

“I’m not going to risk anybody’s future,” Rost said. “He had reached his pitch (limit). It was time to make a change.” 

Waite drew a one-out walk, moved to third on a double to right by Kominkiewicz and scored on a sacrifice fly to center by Kavadas. 

Lau followed with a double to right, but Wilson beared down and got out of the inning without further damage. 

In the top of the seventh, the Chargers left a runner at third base.  

Walter smacked a two-out single to left, stole second base and moved to third on a throwing error. But Szynski retired the next Memorial hitter to get out of the jam. 

That set the stage for the game-winning sequence in the bottom of the seventh.